It turns out Abby isn't just good at buttering up people. She's also got a great way to grease pans and casserole dishes, On The Cheap-style.

"I have a tip for your readers that will save them boatloads on cooking spray," Abby said. "I used to buy Pam all the time to keep things from sticking to my pots and pans. Recently, I've been looking at the ingredients in things and trying to delete processed foods from my diet … . To save money on cooking spray and eat healthier, I wanted to invent my own Pam cooking spray. I went to Walmart and picked up a spray bottle for 97 cents (not even a dollar). Then I filled it with vegetable oil. Now when I need to coat a pan I just spray away with my own bottle filled with oil that I have previously bought in bulk. No more $3 cans of Pam for me. Hope your readers can use this tip."

We spoke to Abby by phone to see if she'd let us come by to make a demonstration video. We offered to bring a can of cooking spray so we could do a side-by-side comparison.

"It's the last can of Pam you'll ever buy," she said.

We love it when Cheapsters get cocky.

You can see Abby grease a pan in a video at http://www.mcall.com/onthecheap. You'll be impressed.

That cooking spray doesn't seem like much. A 6-ounce can of Pam is just under $3. But when you consider the cost per ounce, it's a huge markup from regular cooking oil, and you get some extra ingredients in that can.

We did some number-crunching in the On The Cheap lab and figure you'd save $295.40 over 20 years if you used Abby's method to make your own cooking spray instead of buying similar products by the can.

We reached out to ConAgra Foods, the Omaha, Neb., company that makes Pam cooking spray to see what they thought about Abby's tip.

"I asked one of our packaging technologists what he thought of this, i.e, whether oil would work well this way, but I didn't hear back from him," ConAgra spokeswoman Teresa Paulsen said.

Maybe he was busy shopping for spray bottles and cooking oil.

We credit Teresa for being quick on her feet, though. Often, corporate spokespeople shy away from us when we ask about lower-cost alternatives to their products. Teresa had a different approach.

"You could include that people should use Wesson oil if they choose to do this," Teresa said. "That's one of our brands, too."